“Rooted” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

*** The world premiere production of “Rooted” is pleasant enough. But the audience works harder than we need to, that is, to try to understand it all.

The idea behind this play, however, is very good. Written by Ben F. Locke and directed by Carol Ann Tan, the story revolves around three sisters—Merna (Stephanie Shum), Kassie (Kylie Anderson), and Bailey (Ama Singletary)—who come from a family of witches and whose mother recently passed away. The three of them live together in an apartment inside their family house. However, after their mother’s untimely death, the house holds too many bad memories for their father, so he is in the process of selling it to a man named Anthony. Even before the sale has been finalized, the father has allowed Anthony to start reconstructing the upstairs unit, creating lots of construction noise combined with unnervingly loud music. This turn of events is distressing to the three sisters, who will soon be evicted and have nowhere else to go. Considering that they want to remain in their house and stay together, their first thought is to turn to their witchcraft and do something supernatural to improve their situation. But we are told that after their mother died, their father insisted that his daughters practice only good witchcraft (a/k/a white magic) and thus he has locked up all of the powerful books containing dark magic (a/k/a black magic).

The trio thus comes up with an idea to get around their father’s prohibition: They will resurrect a witch from hundreds of years ago who could practice her dark magic instead of them. Through the use of appropriate spells, hexes, curses, and potions, she would be the one to destroy Anthony and his partner “Not Mary” (whose actual name is Corinna) so as to prevent the house from being sold. What happens is that the three modern witches conjure up an ancient witch named Isobel (Gabriela Diaz), who was burned at the stake centuries ago and who happens to have been resurrected many times over. In addition to being a witch, she now becomes a ghost who has taken on corporeal form. Among other things, she tells the sisters that every time she comes back to life, she eventually dies a painful death.

Right after Isobel is conjured up, Anthony’s sister Ryan (Zhanna Albertini) wants to be friendly and meet her brother’s neighbors in the apartment below. She knocks on the sisters’ door just when Isobel is cooking up some wolfsbane in a deadly brew on the kitchen stove. The four of them urge Ryan to leave immediately. But when she notices the cauldron, they get an idea—and suddenly they give her a container of “soup” to bring back to her family as a “friendly gesture.” Ryan takes the soup container but, alas, as we learn later, the evil potion doesn’t work, and everybody is fine; what a misstep in the plot! Plus, Ryan should have been holding an empty container when she returns to the sisters’ apartment later, finds the door unlocked, and enters anyway. There she scares Kassie, who is home alone, wearing her earbuds and doing exercises. As it turns out, both women are lesbians and start to consider exploring a relationship with each other. Then at another point in the story, Isobel discusses how lesbianism has been an unspoken part of the past when women would choose not to marry or when they preferred to further their own interests rather than taking care of a husband and children. She also mentions how women would band together in sisterhood and, as witches, would become part of a coven. And in her current incarnation, Isobel is anxious to recreate a coven from her past. While her monologues about women’s empowerment are interesting, they are almost too intellectual in a largely fanciful story that should tug harder on our emotions. Some of the lectures are hard to follow, in part because they are spoken so quickly that we cannot grasp their full import.

While it’s entertaining to watch the witches dance and do their incantations and cast spells and the like, the tale has too many holes in it to be perfectly enjoyable. For example, later on in the show, Kassie no longer wants to go against her father’s wishes to work with Bailey and Merna and use magic to kick Anthony and Corinna out of the house. But it isn’t clear why. At first, I thought it was because she’s now in love with Ryan and wants to keep her and her family alive after all. Yet Isobel, recognizing Ryan’s hidden talent as a witch, replaces Kassie as the third witch to cast spells. But when Kassie retreats and watches the others, she says something like this: If Ryan doesn’t work out, then she’ll reluctantly be the third witch. This is not the only place where the show is confusing. Another example has to do with where the father lives. At the beginning, he seems to live in a separate room upstairs. But later it appears as if he has already moved out and now lives in a completely different house. It’s also unclear whether their book of witchcraft (their grimoire) was stolen from their father’s room or was simply sitting on a shelf in the living room. Also, we never truly get a handle on the uses of their magic, such as what an acceleration spell is and how this and other spells may be connected to a realm that is not of this earth.

Costumes by Josephine Longo and Ophena De La Rosa are good, especially the white dress worn by Isobel, with burn marks all over it (plus those on her legs) to indicate that she was previously burned at the stake. As for the scenic design by Delena Bradley and Lucie Greene, I particularly liked the floor with a target on it, which can double as a vortex. The props design by Isa Noe is excellent in portraying the sisters’ apartment. Among other things, there is an old-fashioned kitchen table and three mismatched chairs, an old milk pail, and mismatched old cabinetry. The ceiling has stars and haystacks and lamps. I especially liked the tablecloth with a moth on it and the welcome mat that stated: “There is no reason for you to be here.” The lighting by Henry Toohey is excellent. Vertical lamps interspersed with the cabinets are well done, and I especially liked when the blue light shone on the grimoire, which lit up the invisible ink. Kudos to fight and intimacy designer Tristin Hall for staging the sex scene with Ryan and Kassie, as well as the violence scene between Kassie and Merna—which, to my mind, is not necessary for the plot. But the biggest problem with this production, however, is that the sound is not great. Whenever an actor turns away from the audience, it’s hard to hear them.

One of the best parts of the show is when Isobel allows herself to be temporarily inhabited by their father’s spirit. Diaz’s acting is wonderful, especially when she retches at the point when the spirit leaves her body. But strictly speaking, it would be the ghost of a decedent who would enter the body of a living person who serves as a host and a channel. This is the complete opposite of what we see here: where a living person’s spirit is being channeled by a ghost/witch who has returned from the dead.

While “Rooted” is appropriate for the Halloween season, too many aspects are not explained well enough with reference to witchcraft—or they simply don’t make sense. Most importantly, the story isn’t dark enough: It needs to embrace a more vengeful spirit throughout. Not only should there be more illustrations of dark magic but there ought to be more examples of ill will and destruction to make the tale exciting and add to the characters’ motivation. Plus, the characters need to be more sympathetic. Right now, they remain at too much of a distance from the audience. So while we might care about everybody’s plight, I’m not so sure we truly care about them as people. Finally, when the ending seems too weird to be understandable, we simply aren’t interested enough in the great secrets being revealed.

“Rooted” runs through November 2. 2025, at the Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 North Clark Street, 2nd Floor, Chicago.

Tickets range from $6.04 – $42.79, including fees.

In an effort to make performances financially accessible to those who might not otherwise be able to attend, a limited number of $5 Access Tickets are available for each performance.

Performance schedule:

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays: 7:30 p.m.
Sundays: 2:00 p.m.

Special performances:

Friday, October 24 – Student night.
Free pizza, plus a post-show discussion with the artists.

Sunday, October 26 – Masked performance.
Masks will be required for attendees, so that immunocompromised patrons and others who prefer to wear masks in public will have a welcoming environment in which to see the show.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit: https://www.brambletheatre.org/.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Rooted”.